The Most Successful Form of Collective Action on Mechanical Turk

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Mik workes an struggled to organize on these sides. The instances of collective action that have emerged over the last sort of decade have tended to be shut down quite quickly. I think that greater possibilities for collective action might require forms of solidarity with other sections of the work force. We've already seen hints of this emerging between facebook employees and its outsource content moderators. There's certainly nothing solid so when facebook employees walked out because facebook hadn't taken sufficient action against donald trump, content moderators wrote a letter of solidarity to fa book's employees.

Paris Marx is joined by Phil Jones to discuss the hidden microworkers behind supposedly AI-powered automation from major tech companies, how it differs in the Global North and South, and what it means for how we think about the future.

Phil Jones is the author of Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism and a researcher at Autonomy. Follow Phil on Twitter at @philjones7771.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Phil wrote about digital piecework for The Guardian and had an excerpt about refugee labor in Rest of World.
Turkopticon helps workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk gain some information on the contractors offering tasks on the platform.
In 2020, Gizmodo did surveys to find out about workers’ experiences on Mechanical Turk. There were a lot of horror stories.
In 2014, workers on the platform sent emails to Jeff Bezos to ask for better conditions.

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